Three Amigos!

Three Amigos! – Fired from their studio, silent movie stars, Lucky Day, Dusty Bottoms and Ned Nerderlander (a.k.a The Three Amigos!) are invited to fight the dangerous bandit, El Guapo, and his men. Yet their employers are the villagers of a small Mexican town who mistakenly believe that the trio’s Hollywood movies are real. After the Three Amigos confuse a small group of the plunderers with their flamboyant antics, El Guapo descends on the town with deadly intent. Can our heroes muster the courage to fight a genuine villain?

Three Amigos! (1986) – Director: John Landis

Rating: PG

Running Length: 104 mins

Starring: Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, Martin Short

Genre: Comedy, Period. Western

REVIEW: ‘THREE AMIGOS!’

80’s superstars Steve Martin, Chevy Chase and Martin Short have numerous classic comedy movies under their belts. These three stalwarts of American humour have been household names for a long time. ‘Three Amigos!’ sees them playing bumbling silent movie stars, and is a classic that has endured throughout the decades. It still stands out as a genuinely funny movie where their sharing of the screen as equally stupid but kind-hearted men does wonders for a daft and over the top comedy film.

The unmissable costumes the eponymous trio wear just add to the ridiculousness of their situation; they may look like dashing heroes on the silver screen but the stark differences between them and the dangerous banditos only make the reality they are in more funny, especially when they break out into a song and dance routine in order to ward away hard bitten baddies! A movie of this sort definitely needs a charismatic villain to keep the laughs coming and El Guapo (played with aplomb by Alfonso Arau) provides an antihero to enjoy watching. While El Guapo’s men themselves are undoubtedly villains, they also show a somewhat wholesome loyalty to their leader; their pride tinged embarrassment at El Guapo’s delight with the birthday present they get him is nothing but sweet!

The movie slides into weird, surreal territory around half way through which shifts the tone in a jarring way. You’ll wonder if you wandered into a different movie when flamboyant foliage makes a loud appearance, but such scenes are short enough to keep you watching and the tone easily goes back to normal for the rest of the movie. ‘Three Amigos!’ is a joyful comedy that balances a lightness and silliness to be fun for the younger members of the audience without coming across as especially childish so adults can laugh along too, it truly is a film for the whole family to enjoy watching together. Amigos, let’s ride!

CONTENT: IS ‘THREE AMIGOS!’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

Carmen and Rodrigo enter a bar looking for men to help them. A man stands very close to Carmen and looks her up and down. He tells her he can help but then grabs her and pulls her towards him. She cries out and pushes him away. The pair quickly leave and enter a church that is playing a silent movie starring the Three Amigos!. There are several, clearly fake deaths involving men being shot who simply clutch their chests and fall to the ground. One has a knife sticking out of his chest but again this is clearly not real and there is no blood.

The Three Amigos enter the bar and are given a shot of tequila each which they have never tried before. They down them in one go and after a second, their legs buckle and they comically react to the strong alcohol. However, after a few seconds they are back to normal and do not act drunk. Throughout the movie, people are seen to drink tequila and in one scene, many of El Guapo’s men swig from whole bottles and they are very drunk.

A plane flies overhead and Ned states ‘I think it’s a mail plane’, when asked how he knows he says ‘Didn’t you notice its little balls?’ and breaks down laughing. The others don’t get the joke and look at him bemused.

When the Three Amigos first arrive in Santo Poco, a little boy asks Dusty ‘Can I have your watch when you are dead?’

Some of El Guapo’s men report back on their encounter with the Three Amigos and ask him what he’s going to do. The bandit tells them ‘Find these Amigos, open their stomachs, grab their intestines and squeeze them!’

A young woman flirts with Dusty and tells him ‘We could take a walk and you could kiss me on the veranda’, not understanding what a veranda is, he replies ‘Lips would be fine’

While watching the Three Amigos perform their routine, El Guapo laughs and says how much he likes them. He then tells Jefe, his second in command, ‘Just kill one of them’. Lucky is shot in the arm, falls off his horse, and some blood is seen on his sleeve. He is in pain at first but he doesn’t appear to suffer too much.

El Guapo attacks Santo Poco and kidnaps Carmen. His men blow up the church and set fire to numerous buildings, the villagers run away, screaming.

Carmen is held captive in El Guapo’s compound, another woman visits her who is friendly and kind. However, she tells Carmen the she is to be El Guapo’s ‘woman’ and asks her ‘Do you know what foreplay is?’ When Carmen says she doesn’t, the woman says ‘Good, neither does he!’

El Guapo and Jefe discuss Carmen. El Guapo wants her to want to be with him but Jefe asks ‘Why don’t you just take her?…When you want a woman, you take a woman’

A character mocks Ned for having a ‘sissy’ gun.

Lucky threatens El Guapo by saying ‘I’ll fill you so full of lead you’ll be using your ‘thing’ for a pencil’.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?

VERDICT: IS ‘THREE AMIGOS!’ FOR KIDS?

‘Three Amigos!’ hits that rare comedy sweet spot of daft for kids and funny for adults and has countless quotable lines that’ll be repeated for years to come. Due to some innuendo and mild cursing, we feel this movie is appropriate for kids aged 6 and over.

• Violence: 2/5 (some shootings but very little blood or suffering is shown)
• Emotional Distress: 0/5
• Fear Factor: 0/5
• Sexual Content: 2/5 (innuendo)
• Bad Language: 2/5 (some mild cursing and blasphemy)
• Dialogue: 1/5 (part of the Three Amigos’ schtick is to insult their opponents, they say things such as ‘You scum sucking pig!’ and ‘You son of a motherless goat!’
• Other Notes: Deals with themes of friendship, mistaken identities, courage, cowardice, arrogance, confidence and working within your skill set.

Words by Laura Record